Superman vs the Torso Killer
by Scottenkainen
Summary: In Cleveland, the winter of 1938 39, Superman meets the true crime genre as he confronts Eliot Ness and tackles the mystery of the Torso Killer. Semi sequel to Superman's Race, but a standalone story.


Superman vs. the Torso Killer

By Scott Casper, 2006

November 4, 1938. Friday evening.

Superman sat down in his apartment with a glass of vodka in one hand and a collection of folded newspapers tucked under his other arm. The vodka was to warm his insides – with his remarkable constitution, nothing short of vodka straight up gave him any sort of a buzz. The papers were a reading habit of his. Every week he collected what had been written about Superman that week and read it at the end of the week. He was a very fast reader, so there was no reason why he could not have scanned every article earlier in the week, but many of the articles were flattering and he felt he could handle his own ego better if taken in one dose a week.

The Daily Star he did not have to read, of course. Almost everything written in that paper about Superman he had written himself. Actually, he knew Lois also mentioned him periodically in her columns, but he could always count on Lois to be effusive with praise. It was other reporters that sometimes surprised him.

Kay Halle was the Cleveland News' London correspondent. Lois was extremely jealous of her position with the News while Lois was stuck with sob stories for the less-progressive Star. There was a piece this week Halle wrote about London's reaction to Superman! Churchill said that England could use a Superman, but the tone of the piece suggested that Superman was still seen as an urban myth overseas, despite the number of public sightings in Cleveland. That sat well with him. He had almost chosen to work for the News when he first came to Cleveland, but his weakness for underdogs led him to the Star with its then-lower circulation.

He had made a mistake with the Cleveland Press, having snatched up this issue when he saw "Superman" in a headline without reading it. The full headline was "Elliot Ness: Still a Superman?" It was not entirely fair, suggesting that Ness was slacking off because there had not been a major police raid on gangsters since the Mayfield Road Mob last month. Superman envied Ness' "Minute Men" and began to fantasize about what he could accomplish with that kind of organization. Why, even if he were deputized, he could be so much more productive against crime! His vigilantism was still limited to whatever crimes he could stumble upon through his personal investigations. Not for the first time he wondered if it was not a mistake to remain a vigilante and not put his abilities in the hands of the police department. It took the rest of his vodka to make that thought go away. If he really went public, there would be too many questions about his past he could not answer – maybe did not want to answer.

Still…Elliot Ness was a good man and it seemed a shame to be continually at odds with him. Even after last month's race against the Cleveland Auto Club and Roger Rupp, Ness added a citation for disturbance of the peace to all the other charges stacking up against Superman. It would come to a head someday, but it was not something Superman wanted to happen.

The Plain Dealer was a paper that had embraced Superman from the start. After the controversy he sparked last month with the race, it was the Plain Dealer that asked if the masked man running in the race was even Superman, since Superman had never been spotted wearing a mask before. It was an interesting notion, suggesting that maybe there were other people on Earth capable of outrunning automobiles. Were there? It certainly seemed feasible to Superman that, if he could exist, so could others. Doc Savage was said to have abilities that bordered on the superhuman. Could he too be a "superman" and simply holding back? Perhaps someday Superman would have to go to New York City and confront the famous hero on that.

Superman sat the newspapers on the stand next to his chair and leaned back, deep in thought. Despite his incredible abilities – which sometimes still astounded himself – there was only so much one man could do. Doc Savage had his assistants. Elliot Ness had the police force. If only…

November 6, 1938. Sunday evening.

Elliot Ness was standing on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, smoking the last of his cigarette. He flicked the butt into the river. He had been prepared to wait as long as the cigarette lasted, but he was a busy man and the thought of letting a prank call lead him on a fool's errand vexed him. He had just turned around and was about to head back to his car when Superman dropped out of the sky between him and the door. Superman alighted easily on the ground as if he had just stepped down off a stair. His billowing red cape settled down behind him. His features were hard, as if chiseled out of stone. Even though the carnival costume he wore was not skin-tight, it was clear he had a remarkably athletic build beneath it. Ness' attention returned to Superman's face. He studied those features, comparing them against every mug shot he had ever memorized, and came up empty.

"Oh. It's you," Ness said coolly. "If I'd known it was you, I would have had half a dozen officers here and a squad car so I could arrest you."

Superman stared down at the baby-faced Public Safety Director of Cleveland. Superman tried to stay calm and relaxed, a technique that made him look less physically imposing (and part of his disguise as Clark Kent). The last thing he wanted was for the mood here to remain confrontational. "Be that as it may, my offer on the phone still stands. I could help you solve the torso murders."

Ness grimaced. The Torso Killer had plagued him ever since he came to Cleveland. Twelve victims had been found already in just three years. "You said on the phone that you would help me, not could."

"That is entirely up to you," Superman said. "I can help you a lot, perhaps more than you know. All I ask is that you let me help you. Drop these charges against me. Let us work together."

"That's funny," Ness said, smiling. "I thought I heard you say you wanted me to drop the charges against you. Vigilantism? Are you denying to be Superman? The criminal who has been taking the law into his own hands?"

"You know who I am," Superman said, testily, and harsher than his better judgment had advised.

"If you're waiting for me to thank you," Ness said, "you've got a long wait coming."

"It's true that I was too late to nab the killer," Superman said, "but if I had not overheard those two construction workers mention a suspicious character by the river, victim ten might never have been found."

"And that helps me catch the killer how?"

"Think, man! I heard them discussing that from a block away. I can hear things, see things, like no one else can. But I can't be everywhere at once. If you would just share your leads with me, I could narrow my search considerably."

"You want to play cop? Apply for a badge – after you get out of jail."

"What will it take to knock some sense into you?" Superman asked angrily.

"That's just what Capone thought," Ness said with unflappable cool. "If you want to prove me right, then knock me off, toss me in that river, and get me out of your way."

"I can't and won't do that," Superman said.

"Then you're wasting my time here – unless you plan on turning yourself in. No, I didn't think so…" Ness walked past Superman, heading for his car.

"We have so many goals in common," Superman said to his back. "Organized crime, white-collar crime, the traffic problem, juvenile delinquency…working together, we could beat them all. We could make Cleveland a utopia."

Ness stopped, sighed, and then chuckled while he shook his head. Without turning around he said, "You're a dreamer, Superman. Neither you or me can make a utopia out of Cleveland. That's not my job anyway. I'm just here to make it safer. To make a difference. You've already done that. You've had your moment of fame, or whatever it is you're really looking for. Now you can do us all a favor and crawl back under…wherever you came from and leave us alone." Ness turned around and aimed a critical, squinted eye at Superman. "You say you want to help fight juvenile delinquency? How, with a fist? You're going to bend kids in half like a steel bar, or whatever tricks you do that the media eats up? Well it doesn't work that way. One man doesn't make a difference. Society makes a difference, and every man does his part in it."

Superman let Elliot Ness go. There would be no truce between them. He could not overcome the man's unrelenting integrity and lawfulness. Whatever demons had driven the man who took down Al Capone to just try "to make it safer" were also beyond Superman's ability to fight. But what Ness had said made Superman think. What could he do about juvenile delinquency…?

January 14, 1939. Saturday night.

It was a cold, snowy night at the corner of 9th and Lakeside. Superman watched that corner for activity from an opposing rooftop, but cold, snowy January nights did not lend themselves to much foot traffic. Often he would stake out a section of the city like this and monitor it for trouble, but usually it was poorer sections of the city, like Kingsbury Run, that held his attention, not the Office of the Safety Director. It was a dangerous move he was planning this night, but he felt Eliot Ness had forced this.

Two months ago, Ness had turned down his offer of a truce and cooperation on the Torso Killer case and the two months since had led to no developments in the case as far as the press knew. Clark Kent had pressed hard for the release of any new developments in the years-old case, but Ness was as tight-lipped as ever about the case. Last week, George Taylor had told Kent to lay off the Torso Killer story for awhile. It had been four months since the twelfth official body had been found and he felt public interest in the case was waning again. But for Superman, it was continually grating him that the killer had escaped him on his watch. He wanted justice – and was prepared to break the law to get it!

With one easy leap, Superman cleared the street to the office building's roof. The door to the roof was locked, but this was just an inconvenience. Superman had been practicing forcing a door just hard enough to break the lock without damaging the door – it was too easy for him to overdo something with his strength. Practice had paid off and the lock gave way almost quietly. Superman stole into the dark stairwell, confident in his movements because his extraordinary vision allowed him to see in the dark as well as he could in the light.

Superman already knew which office was Ness' from watching through the windows, but it was no guarded secret and he would have easily found it anyway. The office door was locked and Superman paused to force this door too. Then he heard a guard slowly coming his way from the next corridor over. Had the guard heard? Superman let himself inside the office, stood to the side of the door, and held the door handle. He waited patiently for the guard to come around and try the door handle, but the guard was lazy and did not even check it. Once the footsteps had receded far enough away, Superman looked around the office.

Ness' office was a model for neatness. There was barely anything on his desk. Any paperwork he had here was either in a desk drawer or one of the two filing cabinets along the right hand wall. Superman started with the file cabinets, which were also locked. This would take finesse, Superman thought. He tugged on the drawer as lightly as he could and slowly applied more pressure – too much pressure as he broke the lock and bent the drawer. After bending it back into shape as much as possible, Superman examined the file folders inside and found they were all alphabetically arranged. Ness was making this too easy for him!

Even Superman's uncanny vision had trouble making out writing in darkness, but for just such a contingency he had brought along a matchbook, tucked into his belt. Striking a match without breaking it was very hard for his strong hands, but he could also hold a broken lit match right in the palm of his hand and not burn himself. He used his free hand to go through the files. After breaking into his second drawer, he found the whole drawer was reserved for files marked "Torso."

Taking the first file to the desk, Superman looked through it and found the papers inside were further neatly arranged from newest reports back to oldest. The newest report was from a visit Ness had made to Sandusky Veterans Hospital to visit a patient there, Dr. Frank Sweeney. Two pages below that was a copy of an order sent to the hospital to alert the police if Sweeney left the hospital grounds. Superman was so amazed he could only shake his head in bewilderment. Was Sweeney a suspect? For how long? And how had Ness covered it up so well? Superman read further, quickly scanning each page and memorizing it all. When he was done with that file alone, he closed it up gently and put it away, but then he pulverized the lit match in his hand in a sudden and unusual fit of anger. For a moment the journalist in him thought about how, if he ran this story, it would be the biggest expose the Star had ever ran. But that thought vanished when he remembered there were deaths to avenge. Superman let himself out as quietly as he had come.

January 15, 1939. Sunday.

Sandusky Veterans Hospital was a few hours' drive west of Cleveland, but Superman had made the trip in much less time. He had observed the hospital from a distance that night and thought it looked innocent enough. In the morning he had made a brief stop to look around inside it as Clark Kent. He had a different plan in mind for the hospital than his more direct entry the other night. He observed the orderlies, looking for one of about his build. Kent shadowed that man home after his shift, observing how he moved and talked. With the right makeup and dying his hair brown, he could pull it off. He raced back to his apartment in Cleveland to get what he needed and returned to Sandusky by dusk. Transforming himself in a motel bathroom, the disguised Superman then quietly stole into the orderly's house and borrowed his clothes and keys.

Returning to the hospital at twilight, Superman was able to pass unchallenged into the hallways of the hospital. The orderly's key ring was a welcome boon and Superman wished he had procured one before breaking into Ness' office. He also was able to check the patient directory without arousing suspicion. So it was not long at all before Superman was admitting himself into the room of Dr. Sweeney.

Dr. Sweeney was a large, beefy man. He was lying on his bed, still dressed, and holding a book with thick, stubby fingers close to his wall lamp while he remained engrossed by its contents.

"Dr. Sweeney?" Superman asked.

"You're too late to pick up my supper dishes," Sweeney said without looking up from his book, "and you're too early for my medication."

"I was just thinking what you need has been a little late in coming," Superman said.

Sweeney looked up from his book and, when he did, Superman ripped open his white uniform to show the red-and-yellow "S" badge sewn onto the blue shirt beneath.

"Hmm…now what to make of that?" Sweeney said coolly while he carefully laid down his book. "You either have taken monogramming your undergarments to the extreme, or you are the Superman' everyone in Cleveland is talking about."

"There's only one subject I want to come out of your mouth," Superman said, swiftly moving to Sweeney's side, grasping the front of his shirt, and lifting him off the bed in one hand. "How many people did you murder?"

"What makes you think – ow!" Sweeney's question was interrupted by Superman turning him upside down and thumping his head on the floor.

"I came here for answers, not questions," Superman demanded icily. "Now try again. I know Ness has been to see you – has enough circumstantial evidence to pin you to the torso murders, but not enough to arrest you. I know you committed yourself here to get Ness off your back, but know I'm on your back."

"And Ness sent you here to what?" Sweeney said angrily. As Superman turned Sweeney right side up, the larger man tried in vain to break free of Superman's grip. "To rough me up until I confess?"

"Not a bad notion," Superman said. He pushed the length of his thumb into Sweeney's stomach hard enough that Sweeney almost lost his supper. "I have the strength of 200 men," Superman bragged. "If I choose to punch you full-strength, the orderlies will be scraping you off the wall of this room in the morning. Or maybe I can make it look like an accident…" Superman carried Sweeney to the window as easily as a girl might carry a doll. The coast looked clear outside, so Superman forced opened the window and held

Sweeney face-first out the open window. "I could probably toss you as far as those trees," Superman continued, "but it even simpler to just let go of you and let you drop from here."

"I think I see a penny down there," Sweeney said with impossible cool. "Could you lower me down to it?"

Superman hoisted Sweeney back into the room and stared him in the eye. "You're mad," he said.

"Obviously, since I'm here," Sweeney said. "But I've been called other things too. Like evil. Have you ever dealt with someone who was both mad AND evil before, Superman? I didn't think so. I suppose your tricks work to frighten most criminals, but I'm not like most criminals. So what will you do with me? Since you can't frighten me, will you kill me as you've been threatening?"

"I ought to," Superman said, as grimly as ever he had spoken. "I found one of your victims. I know what you did to them. You'd deserve what you get…"

"Or is the circumstantial evidence wrong, and I am an innocent man? Would you be able to live with yourself if you were not sure? More importantly, do you even have the killer instinct in you?"

Superman slowly set Sweeney's feet on the floor and let go of his shirt.

"That's what I thought," Sweeney said, straightening his shirt. "You and Eliot Ness have much in common, you know. Samaritans. Crusaders. Obsessed with the so-called common good'. Your ideals are delusion. Your cause is an empty dream. The only good is what's good for yourself."

"You're wrong," Superman said. "And this isn't over. I'll wait to see if justice can yet be done with you. And if not…I'll be back to deal with you another way." And with that, Superman climbed out the window and leapt from the ledge, hurtling over the distant trees.

Sweeney closed his window and watched through it for Superman for the next five minutes. Confident that he was gone, Sweeney returned to his bed and picked up his book. His hands fumbled with it, as they had turned sweaty. He was still finding his place when the door to his room opened. This time Sweeney looked up, startled. It was his psychiatrist, with a real orderly behind him. The orderly had his medication.

"Your timing is terrible," Sweeney complained. "I could have been killed while I was waiting for you."

"Oh? By whom…?"

"Superman was just here, threatening me, before he jumped from the window."

"Really…" the psychiatrist said. He wrote a quick note to himself in his notebook that read "turning delusional? Must increase voltage of electro-shock therapy."

The next time Dr. Sweeney went to electro-shock therapy, Superman could hear the screams clearly from outside the sanitarium grounds. He betrayed a hint of a smile, knowing some semblance of justice was being served.


End file.
